Thursday, May 31, 2012

Members of Heartland’s staff (thanks, Keely!) have collected the videos, downloadable MP3s, and PowerPoints of every presentation at the Seventh International Conference on Climate Change. They are not all up yet in full, but will be very soon.

Today’s “full selection” feature is Joe Bastardi, who kicked off our conference with a bang at the opening breakfast keynote. The co-chief forecaster at Weatherbell Analytics and frequent guest on many national TV programs delivered a rousing presentation titled: “Global Sea Ice, Accumulated Cyclone Energy, and How it Explains the Climate.”

Editor's note: At the end of the video there will be some links to other speakers. Please click the link for Paul Driessen. This talk clearly outlines how this Global Warming madness impacts us in real life terms....to our detriment. RK

Whilst everyone has been occupied with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s defense before Congress of the EPA’s attempts to regulate CO2 emissions, the Administration has continued to move towards International Ocean Governance with the establishment of a Governance Coordinating Committee for the National Ocean Council, (NOC).

Welcome to UN Agenda 21 “sustainability” in the last bastion of capitalism – the U.S. military. According to the May 19, 2012 issue of Army Times, “The Defense Department, like other federal agencies, is already under orders from the White House to curb energy use throughout its operations and emphasize Sustainable Development. “Planners must make bases more walkable.”(Sean Reilly)

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

I learned from Ron Arnold today that Henry Lamb has passed away. Another leader of the freedom movement has left us.

Henry was one of the first conservative opponents of radical environmentalism I met in the early 1990s, when Heartland started to address environmental issues. He was deeply concerned about the threat posed by the United Nations and its allies in the U.S. to traditional American freedoms and prosperity, and spoke out with great courage and conviction.

Henry was constantly organizing, writing, speaking, and networking with allies. He was a font of ideas for new projects, and not infrequently was ahead of his times. He was videotaping presentations back when it was considered quite a novelty in the movement, and was talking about sustainable development and smart growth as major issues when they were dismissed (and are still dismissed) an a minor or fringe issue by movement leaders. He was the embodiment of the idea that “there’s no limit to what we can achieve if we don’t care who gets the credit.”

Henry operated outside the world of “official” think tanks, partly by choice and partly because most beltway think thank leaders were afraid to associate with a man who spoke so openly and frankly about threats to American sovereignty. He lacked the pseudo-credentials of the pseudo-experts who populate the ranks of think tanks in Washington DC, and was too interested in working with the grassroots instead of “elite opinion leaders.

Monday, May 28, 2012

This has been an issue for so long and it has been fought over so passionately it amazes me that almost no one except "newsies" like me has heard of it. Why? The media has been so silent on this contentious issue for one reason and one reason only. They don't want anyone looking too closely at this. Its kind of like Pelosi telling everyone that they had to pass Obamacare in order to see what's in it. Now....does anyone really think that's very bright? Does anyone really think that's sane? This 'we can't wait...pass it now' phrase is another insanity and for the same reasons. Someone doesn't want everyone looking too closely at reality.

The last time this came up was during the Bush administration (Bush and Condi Rice support this by the way) I linked a bunch of articles in my old newsletter. I may have missed it in the articles I linked here (I linked information from the past here deliberately in order to fill in the reasoning against LOST), but in the 95 treaty the ISB also had the authority to alter the treaty in order to attain their goals without permission from the signatories, and as stated below there is no appeal. They also have the right to tell everyone what can be in the fresh river and stream waters flowing into their 'clean' ocean...and it will be their ocean, don't doubt that for a minute. However, the thing that fascinates me the most is how any sane person could reasonably want the most corrupt organization the world has ever known overseeing the administration of the world's oceans and the commerce taking place there? That is really stupid….unless there is a hidden agenda…of course we know that there is no such thing as a conspiracy.

What’s green and blue and grabby all over? President Obama’s new pressure campaign for Congress to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). The fight over LOST goes back three decades, when it was first rejected by President Ronald Reagan. He warned that “no national interest of the United States could justify handing sovereign control of two-thirds of the Earth’s surface over to the Third World.” According to top Reagan officials William Clark and Ed Meese, their boss believed the “central, and abiding, defect” was “its effort to promote global government at the expense of sovereign nation states — and most especially the United States.” …..It is not hyperbole to expose LOST’s socialist roots. Meddling Marxist Elisabeth Mann Borgese, the godmother of the global ocean regulatory scheme, made no bones about it: “He who rules the sea,” she exulted, “rules the land.” LOST is a radical giveaway of American sovereignty in the name of environmental protection. And it should be sunk once and for all….

A United Nations treaty that Ronald Reagan rejected is rearing its head again in Washington. The big surprise this time around? A few key Republicans are throwing their weight behind it and others seem willing to budge.Administration heavy hitters Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday to support the Law of the Sea Treaty, a world agreement governing transit over the oceans as well as use of resources in the deep sea beds and continental shelf. Over 160 nations have signed on to the treaty, but Ronald Reagan set the trend of objecting in 1984, citing restrictions on mining of the deep sea beds……

The stunning repudiation of Sen. Richard Lugar's, R-Ind., bid for a seventh term has sent shock waves through Washington's internationalist lobby.A former Rhodes scholar, Lugar has spent his career promoting a globalist agenda since succeeding the late Jesse Helms as the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

One day after Indiana Republicans handed Lugar his walking papers, an outfit called the Atlantic Council held a forum to promote the discredited Law of the Sea Treaty. As former Republican Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Warner beamed their approval, Obama's Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta declared "the time has come" for the Senate to ratify the treaty.Hagel, Warner and Lugar share an internationalist mindset. All three senators supported "comprehensive immigration reform" (aka amnesty) bills that failed to pass Congress in 2006 and 2007. In support of LOST, they are joined by former Republican Sen. Trent Lott, now a high-priced lobbyist who no longer answers to his former Mississippi constituents……The coalition for ratification includes three groups whose interests are rarely on the same side: the U.S. Navy, the big multinational oil companies led by Shell, and the radical environmentalist lawyers. That peculiar alliance should make you suspicious.

Even if he's not re-elected, the president hopes to leave behind a treaty giving a U.N. body veto power over the use of our territorial waters and to which we'd be required to give half of our offshore oil revenue….. Like the Kyoto Protocol that pretended to be an effort to save the earth from the poisoned fruit of the Industrial Revolution…..Like its Kyoto cousin, LOST is an attempt at the global redistribution of power and wealth, the embodiment of the progressive dream of the end of the nation state as we know it and the end of political freedom by giving veto over all of mankind's activities to a global body — in this case something called the International Seabed Authority, located in Kingston, Jamaica…… the power to regulate 70% of the earth's surface, placing seabed mining, fishing rights, deep-sea oil exploration and even the activities of the U.S. Navy under control of a global bureaucracy. It even provides for a global tax that would be paid directly to the ISA by companies seeking to develop the resources in and under the world's oceans…..Elisabeth Mann Borgese, an admirer of Karl Marx and a socialist who ran the World Federation of Canada…. views the oceans as the "common heritage of mankind" and in a 1999 speech declared, "The world ocean has been and is, so to speak, our great laboratory for the making of a new world order."

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, also known as the Law of the Sea Treaty (or LOST), presents a dilemma for some national security conservatives.

On one hand, LOST “codifies” key navigational rights and freedoms that are important to the U.S. Navy​—​and the Navy brass actively supports ratification of the treaty on those grounds. On the other hand, one could be forgiven for thinking the U.S. Navy’s 11 supercarriers, 75 nuclear submarines, and 200 other vessels, along with nearly 4,000 aircraft and 340,000 active duty personnel, obviate the need for a document that would merely allow us to do what we already do, and what we are entitled to do, with or without codification by the international community, such as it is. Still, when the U.S. Navy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff repeatedly and forcefully argue that something is crucial to the success of U.S. military operations​—​as they have in the case of LOST​—​conservatives usually salute.

Dark green represents those who have signed and ratified the treaty.

Light green represents those who have signed but have not ratified the treaty.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

We have written before about the Pebble Mine, which is under threat of a preemptive shutdown due to an absurd power grab by the EPA. These threats came to a head in the late afternoon last Friday (the perfect time to try to sneak underhanded tactics by people and hope no one notices), as the EPA “released a draft scientific study of the Bristol Bay watershed and its natural resources, conducted solely to form the basis for preemptively vetoing the Pebble Mine in Alaska.” Keep in mind the Pebble Mine owners haven’t even applied for a permit, let alone gone through the permitting and vetting process, yet the EPA is already trying to block them. So much for an honest and fair chance. Mineweb, a leading online publication covering the mining industry, writes:

Never mind that the U.S. Corps of Engineers has been the primary permitting authority for dredging and filling permits for mining projects impacting watersheds. Over the opposition of the Alaska attorney general [Michael Geraghty], Ranking Senate Energy & Resources Committee Member Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and others, the EPA is determined to wrest the permitting authority for itself, using the power it believes was granted by the Clean Water Act.

Let us be clear: This is a pure power grab by unelected, unaccountable EPA bureaucrats. This report could mean that the EPA can kill any project that could potentially impact water, without the project ever going through the permitting process, and without input from state, local, or other federal agencies.
In fact, Wizbang Blog reports:

An article from Inside the EPA (subscription required) shows that environmentalists couldn’t be happier, and want the EPA to use this plan to kill other projects…“Environmentalists are now calling on the agency to conduct a similar assessment of mining activity in the Great Lakes region. The Bristol Bay study “is comparable to what we’d like to see” in the Great Lakes, National Wildlife Federation (NWF) attorney Michelle Halley said on a May 10 conference call.”

Advanced societies can only exist with the use of the natural resources the world has in abundance. Those who rail against their use have nothing to offer as an alternative. So the only conclusion we can draw from their lack of alternatives is that they don't want advanced societies anywhere. They all tout the greatness of becoming one with the biosphere. What does that mean? Being one with nature means accepting squalor, disease, filth, misery suffering and early death as normal and acceptable. I don't find that acceptable even slightly, and neither do anyone else that is sane. The problem is that society has been misled by such high levels of corruption from the media, academia and the politicians that people in general aren't aware of what is really going on. Dystopia follows the green movement and leftism in the same irrational way Sancho Panza followed the madman Don Quixote. We really do need to get that!

I would like to thank Sandra Wirtz, Director of Research for the American Resources Policy Network for sending this to me.The comments below is from an e-mail from Sandra, however I added some of my own views, so I hope she finds this acceptable.

The EPA is at it again…the agency’s latest attempt to expand its powers.Actually, this is a perfect example of the greenies attempting to impose the Precautionary Principle.Sandra goes on to say, “sounding the alarm on the possible impact of hypothetical mining -- in spite of the fact that no permit application or specific plans have been submitted -- the

The EPA’s unprecedented early action is part of the agency’s effort to derail the development of one of the largest domestic deposits of key strategic mineral resources (Copper, Molybdenum, Gold, Silver and Rhenium) - the so-called Pebble Deposit in Southwestern Alaska.While the project has not even entered the permitting process, EPA seems ready to hit the kill switch -- preemptively vetoing the project before any application has been filed.

The EPA’s decision to conduct a premature watershed study on a mining project that has yet to enter the established permitting process is a dramatic expansion of the agency’s authority. When it comes to critical metals and minerals, the US is heavily dependent on foreign sources of supply. The EPA’s actions will have a chilling effect on domestic resource development, which will impact our national security, manufacturing, competiveness, and ability to innovate.

The EPA’s action underscores the timeliness of a forthcoming study by the American Resources Policy Network entitled Reviewing Risk: The American Resources Policy Network Report on Critical Metals and National Security, which will be available at www.americanresources.org in June 2012.

I wish to thank Sandra Wirtz, Director of Research for the American Resources Policy Network for sending this to me. This article appeared originally here on their web site. In her e-mail to me she points out that "Indeed, as we have regularly pointed out on our blog, the United States has the “dubious honor of being tied with Papua New Guinea for having the lengthiest permitting process of the 25 major mining nations,” according to the authoritative Behre Dolbear “Country Rankings for Mining Investment” report, also dubbed “Where not to Invest.” McGroarty’s conclusion is sobering. Please enjoy. RK

For fans of the Jason Bourne films, The Bourne Dominion offers its latest plot with a "ripped from the headlines" feel: Terrorists have hatched a plot to destroy the United States' only Rare Earths mine, allowing China to extend its dominion over resources critical to everything from wind power and electric car batteries to U.S. advanced weapons systems. Only Jason Bourne can save the day.

Problem is, the plot's just not credible.

Not because we aren't deeply dependent on China for our Rare Earths needs - we are, with China providing 97 percent of global Rare Earth production at present, a fact of which Bourne's fictional national security advisors are painfully aware. And not because few understand the importance of Rare Earths or rare metals more generally - few do: witness Bourne's fictional president sputtering during an Oval Office briefing, "Rare Earths? Just what the hell are Rare Earths?"

No, the plot's not credible because there are far easier ways to stop a major U.S. mining project than going through all the trouble of infiltrating a terrorist cell to blow it up.

As cinema verite, any group opposed to U.S. interests would simply need an anti-mining activist, a Wi-Fi connection and the email addresses of a few federal, state and local bureaucrats. A thousand Jason Bournes with arms-linked around the mine pit would be no match for a well-aimed question about an errant comma on page 15 of Appendix D-3 of any one of the scores of permitting documents required to bring a modern mine online in the U.S. today.

An old-time mining executive once told me "anyone can slow a project. All you need is a 29-cent stamp on the 29th day of the 30 day review period." Of course in the Internet era, even that cost has come down. You can reset a mining review process for the incremental price of a single email.

It makes for a boring book and a snore of a movie, but the truth is, stalling an American mining project is a target-rich environment. To cite just one example, involving an Alaskan copper project, 67 separate permits are required from various local, state and federal agencies. And given that "time is money," as any serious activist knows, stall a project long enough and you can stop it dead.

This is fact, not fiction. Exhibit A: The just-released annual Behre Dolbear Report, officially titled Country Rankings for Mining Investment, but known across the mining world as the "Where Not to Mine Report." Among various indicators, the report ranks 25 mining nations for the permitting process to bring new mines online - a process that in the United States runs an average of seven to 10 years (compare that to one and a half to two years in Australia).

But there's good news in this year's report: The U.S., which ranked dead last in permitting in 2011, gained a point in the 2012 report. As a result, we're now tied for dead last - with Papua New Guinea. Look out Russia, Kazakhstan and DRC Congo (just above us in the worst-to-permit rankings): The U.S. is gaining on you!

The U.S.'s bottom-dwelling status in this crucial category is a sign of the deep un-seriousness of our policy community in connecting the dots between modern mining and the manufacturing industries we expect to power our economy. We can work up all the red, white and blue rhetoric in the world, but it's going to prove difficult to support a "Made in America" manufacturing capability if it's not complemented by a "Mined in America" foundation.

In our world, as in Bourne's, other countries step in to seize advantage when and where they can.

Unless we streamline a process perennially judged to be the mining world's worst, the U.S. will be begging or buying critical metals of all kinds from whatever countries continue to mine them, using whatever standards - or lack thereof - to pull them out of the ground.

That's a bad ending, from which not even the likes of Jason Bourne can save us.

Only U.S. policy-makers have that power.

Daniel McGroarty, principal of Carmot Strategic Group, an issues management firm in Washington, D.C., served in senior positions in the White House and at the Department of Defense.

In the 1967 comedy "A Guide for the Married Man," Joey Bishop's wife catches him in bed with another woman. As his wife stands at the bedroom door screaming at the sight, Bishop and the mistress calmly get up, make the bed and get dressed. The mistress leaves. Bishop nonchalantly sits down in the living room, lights up a pipe, picks up the newspaper and casually leafs through it. "What bed? What girl?" Bishop says. The wife begins to doubt her own eyes, even her sanity. Finally, she turns to Bishop and meekly asks what he wants for dinner. The culprit convinced the victim that she must be nuts.

On the issue of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's defenders attempt to make you feel insane. How could you bring up the Rev. Jeremiah Wright?! It "injects race" into the contest! Obama supporters warn, "After four years, how dare you 're-litigate' the matter!"

President Obama's affirmation of gay marriage threatens to undermine the near-monolithic black support Obama enjoyed in 2008. Several members of the black clergy now say they intend to sit out the presidential election. One poll from last November found black opposition to gay marriage at 58 percent, higher than the rest of the country, which is about evenly split.

The real question is this: What took black church leaders so long to reconsider their near blind support for the Democratic Party?

The historical strength of black churches has been that of a moral and spiritual refuge in a once-hostile country of legalized slavery and Jim Crow. This explains why so many civil rights leaders came out of the church. The moral cause was just and clear: Equal rights mean equal rights — for everyone.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Can We Avoid "Taxmageddon" in 2013?
In 1959, during an interview with the late Mike Wallace, Ayn Rand, the author of “Atlas Shrugged”, said “A free market will not break down. All depressions are caused by government interference and the cure that is always offered is more of the same poisons that caused the disaster.”

After the stock market crashed on October 29, 1929, the government’s solution to the crisis was to raise the top tax rate from 25% to 63%. Successively this was increased to 79% and then to 94%, effectively choking off capital formation, investment, and the incentive to start new businesses.

Not until World War Two broke out in Europe in 1939 and threatened the security of the United States and its allies did Franklin D. Roosevelt reverse his failed policies that had stretched out the Depression, turning to private enterprise to build the airplanes, tanks, and guns that would be needed to defeat the Axis powers and, in 1941, the Empire of Japan. Capitalism saved America.

The Modern Face of War
Saturday, May 19th is Armed Forces Day. I was eight years old when World War II ended. After that I lived through 46 years of the Cold War era until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. For a while, from February 5, 1960 until April 6, 1962, I proudly wore the uniform of the U.S. Army. It never occurred to me or everyone else of my generation that the nation did not need a powerful military capability. As the ancient Romans put it, “Si via pacem, para bellum.” If you want peace, plan for war. Time has not altered that wisdom.

Warning Signs passed 1.5 million page views this week.
Out of billions of blogs on the Internet, that is a show of strength for the individual views of one commentator that is exhilarating and a call to ensure that “facts not fantasy”, the URL of the blog, prevail over the torrent of lies to which people are subjected every day. Facts about the environment. Facts about the economy. Facts about energy. Facts about the political realities and choices facing the nation. Facts about the real science of beneficial chemicals that improve and enhance our lives. Facts about a complex and often dangerous world. This is why Warning Signs commentaries are rarely challenged and why the work of research continues relentlessly to bring facts to readers. Your donations play an essential role in that effort and, large or small, are deeply appreciated.

Now, on to two million page views and more to come!

Climate Nazis
What is it with the “warmists”, Al Gore and his clones who keep insisting the Earth is warming, that too much carbon dioxide (CO2) will be the death of us, and that we have to immediately stop burning “fossil fuels” if we are to save the planet? They are the most relentless liars on the face of the planet. They want us to cover the surface of the U.S. with solar panels and the mountains with wind turbines to generate the energy needed for everything we do. These Green energy alternatives are so wonderful they are producing a mere three percent of our current needs, require government subsidies and loan guarantees to exist, and tend not to be all that great when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.

Caruba Quoted in Mother Jones and Business Week
I occasionally get quoted in the mainstream media and when a Mother Jones reporter asked my opinion of the effort to declare the diamond back rattlesnake on the endangered list, I told him that it was absurd. He had found me via my recent blog post on the Endangered Species Act. The Mother Jones reporter asked if there was a connection between the rattlesnake and the Tea Party use of the famed "Don't Tread on Me" flag from the days of the Revolution. I shot that down! Well, a reporter at Business Week picked up on the Mother Jones article and quoted yours truly in his own. This is why I continue to ask for donations because Warning Signs is getting noticed in the mainstream media and I do a fair amount of radio interviews as well. It gets the conservative message out there and God knows it's hard to break through the liberal blather served up as news.

The Middle East Mess
I have a novel idea. Let’s just let the Middle East stew in its own Islamic juices. Along with the Maghreb, the northern tier nations of Africa, down into Nigeria, wherever you find an Islamic regime, you find millions of very unhappy people. I am not the only one who feels that way, a Monday, May 14 Rasmussen Reports poll found that 63% “believe there is a conflict in the world today between Western civilization and Islamic nations, but most also think the United States should leave the Islamic world alone.”

Last week Hugo Chavez took his aping of Castro's regime to a frightening new level by decreeing the Ley del Sistema Nacional de Inteligencia y Contrainteligencia, (The National Intelligence and Counter-intelligence Law). No more pussyfooting, this law seemed to declare. Venezuela's two traditional intelligence services, the Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services (DISIP) and the Directorate for Military Intelligence, have been abolished and replaced by a General Intelligence Office staffed strictly with Chavez loyalists.

More ominously, this "law" essentially abolished the government's separation of powers. Judges and prosecutors were to be required to co-operate with the newly-decreed secret police...

There is a way to stop the EPA's abuse of science and prevent their continued aggressive regulatory activity that destroys the economy and causes harm to Americans. Primarily, we have to hold the EPA to good scientific principles and stop the EPA's overreaching and panic-mongering.

The method that will work is a well-established judicial and legal demand for good scientific evidence as described in the Daubert supreme court opinion, explained in the book by the Federal Judicial Center -- the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence.

The Supreme Court opinion in Daubert v. Merrell Dow, 509 U.S. 579 (1993) set out rules on assessing the reliability of scientific evidence. To educate judges on how to conduct judicial affairs consistent with the Daubert rules, the Federal Judicial Center published the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence (RMSE) in 1994.......

All the EPA studies (including those done by Samet and his associates) used to claim that the EPA is saving lives or to justify air pollution regulations have weak associations that prove nothing and are unreliable -- i.e., they are within the "noise" (normal variability) range for the premature death endpoint that they report. Samet and his EPA researcher colleagues are harvesting "deaths" from the normal variability of day-to-day events and calling them deaths from air pollution. It's nonsense, and they must know it.

Now the EPA and Dr. Samet assert the theory of "no threshold" to air pollution toxicology. Chemical toxicology still is based on thresholds. "No threshold" chemical air pollutant toxicology turns the Clean Air Act on its head and nullifies and abandons the Clean Air Act strategy intended by the Congress.

The EPA human health effects on science cannot be defended, and the aggressive air pollution regulatory regime is based on a scientific house of cards that can be brought down by an effective legal and political/legislative challenge.

Editor's Note: Please follow the link to see the whole article. The EPA has been a lava flow of scientifically dubious regulations since it was founded. Why would we expect it to be any better as time went by. EPA was not created to be a scientific agency. It was created to be a psuedo-scientific political agency with a dark political agenda driving it. In that it has been horribly successful. RK

These are Steve’s picks for the last couple of weeks. Steve posts them by date; I have waited to post them to see how some things play out in order to organize them by topic. This gives a better picture of what actually happens; as in the issue regarding the state of Arizona and Agenda 21. After the first two links you will be taken directly to Junkscience.com which will have further links if you wish to follow them.

I would like to point out that a few years ago everyone was laughing at the idea that this is a worldwide socialist conspiracy. After all….we know there is no such thing as a conspiracy...right?

However, if the groups promoting all of this are socialistic in nature, including the environmental movement….actually especially the environmental movement; if the end result of imposing all of these regulations and policies will be overseen by the U.N. (clearly a socialist organ) and this will impose socialistic central planning worldwide; then why is it irrational to assume this is anything but a conspiracy to impose socialism worldwide? Apparently there are a great number of officials that believe this is what is actually happening.

As you read these articles that try to claim that there is nothing sinister about Agenda 21; that it is all some conspiracy nuts imagination; you may wish to ask yourself; is humanity being Keyser Sözed into believing no villain actually exists?”

Rep. Dennis Hedke, R-Wichita... noted that most U.S. citizens are unaware of the agenda or the implications of what he called a, “Massive attempt to restructure human activity on the planet.” “There is no other way to put it — this is the most aggressive attack on individual liberty and the foundations of our country we have ever seen.”

Agenda 21: What is it? What are its Goals? What would be the consequences?

Agenda 21 Conspiracy Theory or Threat
The battle over Agenda 21 is raging across the nation. City and County Councils have become war zones as citizens question the origins of development plans and planners deny any international connections to the UN’s Agenda 21. What is the truth? Since I helped start this war, I believe it is up to me to help with the answers. The standard points made by those who deny any Agenda 21 connection is that:

 Local planning is a local idea.
 Agenda 21 is a non-binding resolution not a treaty, carries no legal authority from which any nation is bound to act. It has no teeth.
 The UN has no enforcement capability.
 There are no “Blue-Helmeted” UN troops at City Hall.
 Planners are simply honest professionals trying to do their job, and all these protests are wasting their valuable time.
 The main concern of Agenda 21 is that man is fouling the environment and using up resources for future generations and we just need a sensible plan to preserve and protect the earth. What is so bad about that?
 There is no hidden agenda.
 “I’ve read Agenda 21 and I can find no threatening language that says it is a global plot. What are you so afraid of?”
 And of course, the most often heard response – “Agenda 21, what’s that?”
 And after they have proudly stated these well thought out points, they arrogantly throw down the gauntlet and challenge us to “answer these facts.”

Well, first I have a few questions of my own that I would love to have answered.....

Agenda 21 Links.
Agenda 21 and the impact on personal property rights and land rights content, This page is updated often, last update was November 19, 2011. The most recent updates are first, but the foundational video series are below. (under the Taking Liberty Video Documentary.) We have had several hundred thousand visitors to this page due to its in-depth resources on Agenda 21 and property rights. You can also search our database of over 15,000 content news and commentary articles for more information. Use the search box in the upper right corner above the donation button.

Hood Richardson: Property rights…who needs them?
Government regulatory agencies, environmentalists, liberal politicians, courts and proponents of the “common good” have worked hard during the past 30 years to make property rights less important if not eliminate them all together where they could.

U.N. Fails to Finalise Rio+20 Plan On Sustainable Future
After two weeks of closed door negotiations, a U.N. preparatory committee (PrepCom) has failed to reach consensus on a global plan of action, titled “The Future We Want,” to be adopted by a summit meeting of world leaders mid-June in…

Henry Lamb: Agenda 21′s Role in America’s Financial Breakdown
For more than 20 years, now, the most powerful word in advertising has been “sustainable.” This term sells everything from toilet paper to spark plugs. This same term is even more powerful when applied to public policies such as: “sustainable” energy; transportation; agriculture; development; housing, and almost every other policy considered by government. When the term “sustainable” is used to sell a product, the product will be more expensive and less efficient than it has to be. When the term “sustainable” is used to sell a public policy, the policy will not only be more expensive and less efficient, it will be controlled by the government, and it will ultimately fail.

Arizona and Agenda 21

Arizona Bill Would Ban UN Agenda 21 Within State
As nationwide opposition against the controversial United Nations Agenda 21 “sustainability” plan continues to build, a popular bill in Arizona that analysts say looks set to pass would prohibit all state agencies and political subdivisions from implementing or supporting any …

Agenda 21: Arizona close to passing anti-UN-sustainability bill
Arizona lawmakers appear close to sending to Gov. Jan Brewer a tea party-backed bill that proponents say would stop a United Nations takeover conspiracy but that critics claim could end state and cities’ pollution-fighting efforts and even dismantle the state …

Michael McGuire: UN weighs in on California politics
The Arizona legislature’s passage this week of a bill to prohibit the state and its subdivisions from participating in United Nations Agenda 21 has been dismissed as an act of paranoia, but the UN has shown an increasing interest in …

Tennessee and Agenda 21

Haslam Opts Not to Sign Resolution Against Agenda 21
Governor Bill Haslam has chosen not to go along with conservative lawmakers in condemning an international environmental program. Tennessee’s House and Senate both voted overwhelmingly to oppose the United Nations sustainability blueprint called Agenda 21. Haslam left the resolution unsigned.

Kansas Lawmakers Seek Resolution Against “Insidious” UN Agenda 21
Lawmakers in Kansas are considering a strongly worded resolution condemning a controversial United Nations “sustainability” scheme known as Agenda 21, saying the global plan is a “dangerous” attack on private property rights, individual liberty, and national sovereignty..

U.S. Federal Government and Agenda 21

House passes UN conspiracy resolution
The House advanced a resolution Thursday demanded by lawmakers fearful about covert infiltration of U.S. environmental policy by socialist ideals espoused by the United Nations.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Recently I spoke against an anti-pesticide ordinance at the April Cuyahoga County Council meeting in Cleveland, Ohio. The basis for this ordinance was that pesticides were “toxic” and “carcinogenic”. None of that is an explanation for understanding whether they represent an inappropriate ‘risk’ or not, and since those are both trigger words the ordinance was based on scare mongering. One of the council members claimed that they had the studies to show the health risks caused by pesticides. Baloney! If this was true then the EPA would be required by law to remove those products from the market place; and we need to understand that the EPA is not a pesticide friendly organization, but there are even limits to the kind of junk science they can heap on society. However, I do think it is important for everyone to know how risk evaluations are properly done, or in this case an explanation of how they are done improperly.

Statistics aren't science and cannot alone prove the existence or absence of risk. One of the problems with using statistics to determine risk is 'data dredging'. If you drag up enough data you can come up with any explanation that suits the particular issue you are trying to promote. “Statistics are being looked to more and more as explanations for answers to medical problems from people with expertise in mathematical manipulation and information technology, rather than from people with an understanding of disease and its causes." “Statics can’t prove cause and effect associations because they don’t provide biological explanations. Without such explanations, statistical associations are hollow numbers.” Biological explanations, not mere possibilities or conjecture, are a necessary component of determining the existence of risk.

Epidemiology alone isn't science because epidemiology is statistics and alone cannot prove the existence or absence of risk. Mice aren't little people. The results of tests on laboratory animals do not necessarily pertain to humans. Mice aren't little rats either. Very often reactions to a substance that occur in mice do not occur in rats and vice versa. The American Council on Science and Health petitioned the EPA to stop declaring substances ‘carcinogenic’ on rodent testing alone because that violated the principles outlined in the Information Quality Act. “Finally….EPA replied with a dodge, claiming that their Risk Assessment Guidelines are not statements of scientific fact -- and thus not covered by the IQA -- but merely statements of EPA policy.” One would think that policy would be based on science, so if it isn't we must ask; just what is this policy based on? So if the EPA can't find a reason to remove these products from the market place we can be assured some local council has nothing to offer that could ever begin to look like 'valid science'.

Exposure isn't toxicity. Just because someone is exposed to a substance or condition doesn't necessarily mean that they've been exposed to a harmful level. I often read that articles that deal with bio-monitoring to see just how many synthetic chemicals we have in bodies. That number has consistently been over 200. We are also living longer and healthier lives. Does that mean that having more synthetic chemicals in our bodies increases our life span and quality of health? The dose makes the poison. All substances are poisons in sufficient amount. Below that amount, exposures are not harmful. At some point the molecular load of any substance will be so small that cells will not respond to it. This is called the threshold principle.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

A loaded question is a question which contains a controversial or unjustified assumption, e.g., a presumption of guilt.

Aside from being a logical fallacy, such questions may be used as a rhetorical tool: the question attempts to limit direct replies to be those that serve the questioner's agenda. The traditional example is the question "Have you stopped beating your wife?" Whether the respondent answers yes or no, he will admit to having a wife, and having beaten her at some time in the past. Thus, these facts are presupposed by the question, and in this case an entrapment, because it narrows the respondent to a single answer, and the fallacy of many questions has been committed. The fallacy relies upon context for its effect: the fact that a question presupposes something does not in itself make the question fallacious. Only when some of these presuppositions are not necessarily agreed to by the person who is asked the question does the argument containing them become fallacious. Hence the same question may be loaded in one context, but not in the other. For example the previous question would not be loaded if it was asked during a trial in which the defendant has already admitted to beating his wife.

41 years ago this week (Oct.9, 1967) in Boliva, Ernesto "Che" Guevara got a major dose of his own medicine. Without trial, he was declared a murderer, stood against a wall and shot. Historically speaking, justice has rarely been better served. The number of men Che's "revolutionary tribunals" condemned to death in the identical manner range anywhere from 400 to 1,892. The number of defenseless men (and boys) Che personally murdered with his own pistol runs to the dozens.

"Executions?" Che Guevara exclaimed while addressing the hallowed halls of the UN General Assembly on Dec. 9, 1964. "Certainly, we execute!" he declared to the claps and cheers of that august body. "And we will continue executing as long as it is necessary! This is a war to the DEATH against the Revolution's enemies!"

I know a lot of time that has passed since the world became afflicted with the madness of Global Warming, so most have probably forgotten the hysterical claims made by the greenies. Their big thing was that we were running out of “fossil” fuels so we needed to dump oil, coal and natural gas and adopt "renewable" energy sources. I know, I know....you’re about to say….no, no, no…it was about the world becoming too hot because of too much CO2 in the atmosphere, and those energy sources were the cause. Baloney! If there wasn’t concern about an end to those resources this wouldn’t have gotten off the ground. That was the reason for promoting wind, solar and bio-fuels as energy sources. All of which are a disaster.

I know that no one will remember, but many years ago I said that I thought it was a wonderful idea for the Euro-nuts (who, with smug arrogance, denigrated the U.S. for not jumping on board with them in their lemming like approach to economics) to adopt these green policies. Why? Because I knew it would be good for our economy. Green is expensive and ineffective. Green, as outlined by the environmental movement, is a death wish to any country that adopts it, and this includes the rich and the poor nations.

Now we see that Germany has fired its Environmental minister who was “responsible for the implementation of the green energy transition – one of the most important projects of this country,” because he presumably “botched” the whole thing leading to losses in an election. Don’t you love it? It’s just like the Soviet Union under Stalin. Do you remember the five year plans that all failed? They failed because the people running them were flawed; not “the plan” mind you, because ‘the plan’ was flawless. It was the people running "the plan: that were flawed; so he shot them… and appointed others (who must have really been happy about that) to run “the plan”! Now we know "the plan" had to be flawless because Stalin liked “the plan”, so any “plan’ approved by Stalin was flawless. Of course they eventually dumped all “the plans”. Why? Is it because these “plans” were all stupid? No…of course not. They just couldn’t find anyone to master these planned pieces of brilliance (that kept failing) so they dropped them. Please read "Let Me Tell You About Trofim Denisovich Lysenko".

However, I am inclined to believe that the real reason Merkel fired her friend is based on “a recent study estimates that the Germans will soon have to reckon with dramatic price rises in their electricity bills. According to the study, electricity cost for households will doubled in ten years. The rising costs are due to the expansion of renewable energy as well as the necessary grid expansion and the subsidisation of solar and wind power.” “Electricity prices in Germany will rise by 70 percent by the year 2025 according to a study.” But “the plan” was flawless….it just didn’t work...and they need a scapegoat! He's it!

Now we find that the Brits are going to review their “Green Deal” just because a paltry 8.5 million people can’t afford their energy bills. Imagine that! Another arrogant group who criticized us for our insane idea that the world wasn’t warming beyond anything that was normal and that CO2 wasn’t a problem after all.

Canada,under the previous government, was a big supporter of global warming initiatives, and the current leaders were also on board. Then reality stepped in as “the global economy melted down, public concern about climate change plunged. At the same time, and to the same extent, the prominence of climate change in government communications also plunged.” “In December, 2009, in Copenhagen Canada [agreed to cut] emissions by 17 per cent from the 2005 levels by 2020. It later formally scrapped Canada’s commitment to the Kyoto Protocol, which had committed this country to much steeper reductions.” I guess the price of energy really is the beginning of wisdom.

Now we have a bunch of nitpickers fighting over the “Duration Of ‘Kyoto 2′ Threatens Rift At UN Climate Talks”. They are disputing “over the length of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol has threatened to fracture a coalition between the EU and some of the world’s poorest countries at the latest round of U.N. climate talks….” This is all horse sweat. They don’t want an agreement because the world isn’t warming any longer and the ‘World Is Running Out Of Energy Scares”! It turns out that “methane hydrates constitute the world’s No. 1 reservoir of fossil fuel. Ubiquitous along vast stretches of Earth’s continental shelves, they hold enough natural gas to fuel the world for a thousand years – and beyond.” Let's face it....Kyoto agreements are an economic disaster for any country that adopts them....and for what? The world isn't warming and CO2 wasn't the cause of the small amount of warming that did occur over the last 150 years. Get over it!

So in conclusion we now know we have enough oil and coal to last at least 200 years and the amount of natural gas that has become available is so large that the vastness of that quantity is virtually unknown. Now we find that there is so much energy in another resource that we are now energy independent worldwide. We just need to go and get it. So why do we need another Kyoto? We don’t need another one any more than we needed the first one. There is one catch to this though. Since the scheme to impose worldwide emissions standards, which Jaques Chirac called 'the first step in global governance', has clearly failed, the next effort is, and has been for decades, to give the United Nations authority over the world's oceans by way of the LOST treaty. (Editor's Note: Please follow this link. This is an article that needs to be read! RK)

We need to really get this. There were those who knew this was inevitable from the beginning of these scares. There were those of us who knew this as a gigantic fraud from early on. There are those who are finally realizing it now. And then there are those who still think that Stalin wasn’t really a bad guy after all. He just needed another plan!

The planners are always with us. What I find particularly appalling is that none of them seem to have ever done anything except plan….other people’s lives.

About Me

Green is a mixture of blue and yellow. That is the only factual definition of green that will stand the test of time. After that; any other definition is a corruption of a perfectly nice color. I have been an exterminator for 35 years. I have served as a trustee on industry association boards representing pesticide and fertilizer applicators actively for almost 25 years. I believe that what we do isn't just a job; it's a mission! We are that thin gray line that mans the wall telling the world; "no one will harm you on my watch". I also believe that to be green is to be irrational, misanthropic and morally defective. They are the barbarians at the gate we have to stand against. Our greatest worry is those within who support and facilitate their misanthropic goals.